> And it really is quite inexpensive for an NT shop to take an old 386,
> install Linux on it and use that as a RADIUS server.
<climbing up onto the soap-box>
Yup, all our mission-critical machines are either linux or SunOS. When I
first started working here, it was an all NT shop. I was adamant that
having NT on even *one* box was unrealistic in a mision-critical
environment like an ISP network, _never mind_ having all NT machines.
Well, that was proven over a period of about 1 month. The first thing to
go from NT to linux was DNS. THe next was the login servers (they were
using RAS and Digiboard units, really sucked). Since I had quite a bit of
experience with Livingston, I knew just the solution to those problems...
Now, we have 3 NT web servers that take more of a beating than their linux
counterparts. The linux machines are P5-90MHz machines with either 32MB or
64MB RAM running linux 1.2.13 and apache 0.6.5 httpd. The NT machines are
a P60, P90 and P100, each with 32MB RAM, running NTAS 3.51 and O'Reilly
WebSite. We have one customer whose web site is quite popular (an adult
page, one of the better ones on the 'net). This was on the linux machine.
Load was up to 75 on the machine, httpd was taking ~10-20 hits per second.
Sendmail had stopped, my shell on the machine was in bad shape (10
seconds+ to echo back what I typed), it was pretty rough (never crashed,
though, and the web pages still came up fast...). Moved the pages over to
one of the NT machines. It now serves up this page happily without
breaking a sweat, and the machine virtual-hosts with several other popular
web sites as well.
I know, I'm rambling, and off-topic at that. But I'm just illustrating
that:
(1) I am the most anti-microsoft person around. I fought the introduction
of NT here *tooth and nail*, and lost (hey, I'm just an employee).
(2) Whether NT is "better" than *nix is irrelevant. NT will be more
popular than *nix because as time goes on, more clueless newbies and
sysadm-wannabe's will be getting into the business. They will start right
out with NT because the thought of learning how to use unix will frighten
them back into their mommies' wombs. It will be these thousands of
newcomers to TCP/IP that will drive the market, creating more demand for
an easily-administered server platform. Millions, even billions, will be
dumped into NT development and improvement. This certainly won't hurt
NT's market position.
(3) Those of us who don't face this reality now will not be in demand in
the market a couple years from now. Those companies who do not release NT
versions of their software will be in a weaker position than their
competitors who *do* release NT versions of their products.
I am an NT newbie, and morally and ethically, it pains me to cave in. I'm
a unix weenie to the bone, and always will be. But if I want to be in
this business in the future, I have to go where the market (and therefore
the $$$) goes.
<falling off the soap-box>
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Sucks, but it's the way it is.
Chris Woods Systems Administrator
cjwoods@usa1.net USAinternet, Inc.
http://www.usa1.com/~cjwoods 508-774-4700